Tech & Data

The Big Tech Projects Connecting Africa in 2026

Africa has the lowest share of people online of any world region (see our country-by-country ranking), and the world's biggest tech companies are spending heavily to change that. This is an unranked roundup of 20 real projects: subsea cables, terrestrial fiber, satellite constellations and cloud data-center regions, plus one high-profile experiment that has since been shut down. Each entry lists who is behind it, how far along it is, which countries it reaches and one standout fact.

The 2Africa subsea cable, led by Meta

Pictured: 2Africa, Meta’s 45,000 km subsea cable, from the subsea cable segment.

Project Company Segment Status In service African countries reached Notable fact
2AfricaMeta + 7 telecom partnersSubsea cableLive202516 countries, 21 landings, all around the continent45,000 km and 180 Tbps; touches 33 countries in total
EquianoGoogleSubsea cableLive2023Togo, Nigeria, Namibia, South Africa, St Helena15,000 km from Portugal; 144 Tbps design capacity
PEACEPEACE Cable InternationalSubsea cableLiven/aEgypt, Kenya192 Tbps; Kenya branch alone is about 3,000 km
MedusaAFR-IX Telecom, with OrangeSubsea cablePartly live2026Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt8,700 km; up to 24 fiber pairs of 20 Tbps each
UmojaGoogle, with Liquid Intelligent TechnologiesSubsea cableBuildingn/aKenya, Uganda, Rwanda, DR Congo, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South AfricaFirst cable route to link Africa directly with Australia
Project WaterworthMetaSubsea cablePlannedn/aSouth Africa50,000 km across five continents; 3 South African landings
StarlinkSpaceXSatelliteLive202329 markets, from Nigeria to SomaliaAbout 300,000 African customers by mid-2026
OneWebEutelsatSatelliteLiven/aSouth Africa, Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Nigeria and others, via partnersGateways in Senegal, Ghana, South Africa, Mauritius, Tanzania, Angola
Amazon Leo (formerly Project Kuiper)AmazonSatelliteBuildingn/aNigeria (licensed); Vodacom markets planned7-year Nigerian landing permit, effective February 2026
Azure South Africa North & WestMicrosoftCloud regionLive2019South AfricaMicrosoft's first datacenters in Africa (Johannesburg and Cape Town)
Huawei Cloud JohannesburgHuaweiCloud regionLive2019South AfricaHuawei's first public cloud region in Africa
AWS Africa (Cape Town)Amazon Web ServicesCloud regionLive2020South AfricaThree Availability Zones (af-south-1)
Oracle Cloud JohannesburgOracleCloud regionLive2022South AfricaOracle's 37th cloud region worldwide and its first in Africa
Google Cloud JohannesburgGoogleCloud regionLive2024South AfricaGoogle Cloud's first region in Africa
Huawei Cloud CairoHuaweiCloud regionLive2024EgyptLaunched with an Arabic large language model
Oracle Cloud CasablancaOracleCloud regionLive2026MoroccoOracle's first public cloud region in North Africa
Olkaria geothermal data centerMicrosoft & G42Cloud regionStalledn/aKenya$1 billion plan; 100 MW to start, up to 1 GW
LoonAlphabet (Google), with Telkom KenyaRetiredShut down2020KenyaAbout 35 balloons covered roughly 50,000 km²

Highlights

Subsea cable

2Africa (Meta and partners)

The biggest project on this list. Meta and seven partners (China Mobile International, Bayobab, center3, Orange, Telecom Egypt, Vodafone and WIOCC) switched on the core of 2Africa in November 2025, after five years of construction. At 45,000 km, it's the world's longest open-access subsea cable system. Its 16 fiber pairs carry up to 180 Tbps, and it has 21 landings in 16 African countries, all the way around the continent. A Gulf extension, 2Africa Pearls, is due to follow in 2026.[1]

Subsea cable

Equiano (Google)

Named after the 18th-century Nigerian-born writer and abolitionist Olaudah Equiano, Google's cable runs 15,000 km from Portugal down Africa's Atlantic coast to Togo, Nigeria, Namibia and South Africa. Google said it would carry about 20 times more capacity than the last cable built to serve the region. It also gave the remote island of St Helena its first undersea internet link. The cable has been ready for service since 2023.[2]

Subsea cable

Umoja (Google)

Umoja, Swahili for "unity," is the first cable route to link Africa directly with Australia. Starting in Kenya, its land section, built with Liquid Intelligent Technologies, runs through Uganda, Rwanda, the DR Congo, Zambia and Zimbabwe to South Africa and Google's Johannesburg cloud region. That land section is finished. Ships are now laying the undersea leg across the Indian Ocean to Perth, which is slated to be ready for service in 2027.[3]

Subsea cable

Medusa (AFR-IX Telecom and Orange)

Medusa is North Africa's new Mediterranean cable. The €342 million, 8,700 km system, backed by AFR-IX Telecom, Orange and the European Union, is planned to link 19 landing sites in Europe and North Africa. It landed in Nador, Morocco, in December 2025, and its first segment, between Marseille in France and Bizerte in Tunisia, went live in June 2026. Landings in Algeria and Egypt are due to follow.[4]

Satellite

Starlink (SpaceX)

Nigeria became Starlink's first African market in January 2023. By late summer 2026 the service was live in 29 African countries: Benin, Botswana, Burundi, Cabo Verde, the Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, DR Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Zambia and Zimbabwe. South Africa is notably missing. A Space in Africa report counted about 300,000 customers by mid-2026, with Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Zambia accounting for roughly 64% of them. SpaceX is targeting 16 more African markets, including Tanzania and Namibia, though several earlier launch targets slipped.[5]

Satellite

Amazon Leo (formerly Project Kuiper)

Amazon's answer to Starlink got its first big African foothold in January 2026, when Nigeria's regulator granted it a seven-year landing permit that took effect on February 28. The permit covers home and business broadband plus service for ships, planes and vehicles. In March 2026, Vodafone signed on to use Amazon Leo as backhaul for 4G and 5G cell towers that are too remote for fiber. That service starts in Europe and is due to reach Africa later through Vodacom.[6]

Cloud region

Google Cloud Johannesburg

Google announced in October 2022 that it would open its first African cloud region in South Africa. The Johannesburg region opened to customers in January 2024, with an official launch event in March. It was the last of the big three US cloud providers to arrive: Microsoft Azure had opened in Johannesburg and Cape Town in 2019, and AWS in Cape Town in 2020. Google's Umoja cable is designed to connect directly into the region.[7][3]

Retired

Loon (Alphabet)

In July 2020, Alphabet's Loon launched what it called the world's first commercial balloon-powered internet service, in Kenya. Roughly 35 stratospheric balloons beamed 4G to Telkom Kenya subscribers over about 50,000 km² of western and central Kenya. Six months later, in January 2021, Alphabet shut Loon down because it couldn't find a sustainable business model, ending plans for Kenya and Mozambique.[8]

Internet Africa Technology

Sources

  1. 2Africa completion coverage, November 2025: DCD, RCR Wireless, Connecting Africa, Ecofin Agency and Techloy. These cover the consortium members, the 45,000 km length, 180 Tbps capacity, 16 fiber pairs and African landings, and the 2026 Pearls extension.
  2. Google's Africa blog on Equiano's first African landing in Lomé, Togo; WIOCC landing in Lagos (Telecompaper, April 2022); Paratus' Namibia landing station (DCD); TechCentral on the South Africa landing; Africa Practice's St Helena economic impact assessment. Length, capacity and the 2023 ready-for-service date are as reported in cable-industry summaries.
  3. Umoja announcement coverage (Developing Telecoms, DCD, Connecting Africa, ITWeb, May 2024) and ITWeb's "Google begins work on subsea cable linking SA to Australia." Earlier coverage gave early 2026 as the completion target; later reporting puts the subsea segment's ready-for-service date in 2027.
  4. DCD on Medusa's landings in Nador, Morocco (December 2025) and Marseille, and on the first phase going live between France and Tunisia (June 2026); the European Investment Bank's AFR-IX Medusa project page; Algeria Tech News on the Algerian landings.
  5. TheCable and Space Explored on Starlink's Nigeria launch (January 2023); Space in Africa's July 2026 Starlink market report (26 markets, about 300,000 customers); tech-ish (July 2026) on Côte d'Ivoire and Seychelles; Ecofin Agency on Equatorial Guinea (the 29th market) and the 16-market target for the end of 2026; MyBroadband on South Africa.
  6. Space in Africa and Connecting Africa on Amazon Leo's Nigerian landing permit (January 2026); Vodacom and Space in Africa on the Vodafone–Amazon Leo agreement (March 2026); African Business, "Amazon and Starlink bring satellite battle to Africa" (July 2026).
  7. DCD, Connecting Africa and Bizcommunity on the Google Cloud Johannesburg region (operational January 2024, launch event March 2024, first announced October 2022).
  8. Space in Africa and TechCrunch on Loon's Kenya deployment and commercial launch (2020); the IFC on the Telkom Kenya partnership; Connecting Africa, "Alphabet grounds Loon Internet project" (January 2021).
  9. Table-only subsea entries: Kenya News Agency and Submarine Networks on PEACE's Mombasa landing (192 Tbps; Kenya segment about 3,000 km; ready-for-service year not confirmed, so listed as n/a). On Project Waterworth: Meta's engineering blog (February 2025), TechAfrica News, and coverage of Meta's April 2026 announcement at the South Africa Investment Conference (three South African landings).
  10. Table-only satellite entry: Space in Africa and Developing Telecoms on Eutelsat OneWeb's Angola earth station (June 2025) and its distribution partners (Paratus, Liquid, MSTelcom, Nigcomsat, Airtel Gabon).
  11. Table-only cloud entries: Microsoft's Azure blog on the general availability of its South African regions (March 2019); TechCentral on Huawei Cloud South Africa (2019) and Huawei Cloud's Cairo region launch (May 2024); Amazon's press release on AWS Africa (Cape Town) (April 2020); Oracle's press release on its Johannesburg region (January 2022); TechAfrica News on Oracle Casablanca (April 2026); DCD and Techish Kenya on the stalled Microsoft–G42 Olkaria project (May 2026).